mawkie
C&R Whisperer
-In the past Pennsylvania has been one huge honey hole to me and today's auction experience just confirmed it. I've been on the prowl for a German issue French Unique Model 17 for some time now. Everything I've found either sold strong at $800 or more or was a very rough example.
-Fast forward to this Wednesday. Bucky has a 5 hour grooming session in Gettsyburg and I'm trolling auctions in the area for something to do to kill as much of that free time as possible. I run across an auction listing with an air cooled 80's vintage Porsche 911 Targa and this gets my attention. So I'm going through the catalog list and see "French 7.65 pistol". OK, that's worthy of attention. There's one 10 ft photo and at first glance it looks like a Ruby or Unique. But the grips are odd and look short. A Union Model 17 has a 9 round magazine and there's no way this has a 9 round single stack magazine.
-Out comes my go-to reference: French Service Pistols by Medlin & Huon. It's here that I find the answer. This is a Unique Model 16. Huh? Never heard of it. Turns out the 7 round Model 16 was in production pre-war and sold on the commercial market. So when the Germans take over production at Unique and are building Model 17s there are enough parts about to build approx. 2000 examples. I take to the 'net to see if there are any comps so I can figure out what's a fair market price. I can only find three sales in the last decade: a mint example @ RIA that sold for $2875, a good example that JTD sold for $1500 and a totally roached one that POG sold for $110.
-So I'm fired up as I'm betting that this is a bring back and will be sporting a German inspection mark as well as a SN in the known range. I get to the auction today and bingo it's a German issue example in about 80-85 point condition. A tiny chip in the left grip lower corner. The mag doesn't match but the number is 11 digits off what it should be. Interesting! I swag it as worth around $1000 - $800, leaning on the high side.
-The auction is filled with damned near everything and only about 20 rifles and pistols, all low grade, non-collector stuff. Nothing sells for more than $200. Then when the Unique comes up someone else there bid me up to about the price of a low grade Unique Model 17 which I'm betting is what he thought it was. So I didn't totally steal it but got it for roughly half of my pre-auction high estimate. So I'm thrilled and will probably put the long search for a Model 17 to bed. Got something much better!
-You can just make out the E/WaA251 inspection mark on the right tang, under the "4" in the SN. Has a 3 line address on the left side of the slide.
-Fast forward to this Wednesday. Bucky has a 5 hour grooming session in Gettsyburg and I'm trolling auctions in the area for something to do to kill as much of that free time as possible. I run across an auction listing with an air cooled 80's vintage Porsche 911 Targa and this gets my attention. So I'm going through the catalog list and see "French 7.65 pistol". OK, that's worthy of attention. There's one 10 ft photo and at first glance it looks like a Ruby or Unique. But the grips are odd and look short. A Union Model 17 has a 9 round magazine and there's no way this has a 9 round single stack magazine.
-Out comes my go-to reference: French Service Pistols by Medlin & Huon. It's here that I find the answer. This is a Unique Model 16. Huh? Never heard of it. Turns out the 7 round Model 16 was in production pre-war and sold on the commercial market. So when the Germans take over production at Unique and are building Model 17s there are enough parts about to build approx. 2000 examples. I take to the 'net to see if there are any comps so I can figure out what's a fair market price. I can only find three sales in the last decade: a mint example @ RIA that sold for $2875, a good example that JTD sold for $1500 and a totally roached one that POG sold for $110.
-So I'm fired up as I'm betting that this is a bring back and will be sporting a German inspection mark as well as a SN in the known range. I get to the auction today and bingo it's a German issue example in about 80-85 point condition. A tiny chip in the left grip lower corner. The mag doesn't match but the number is 11 digits off what it should be. Interesting! I swag it as worth around $1000 - $800, leaning on the high side.
-The auction is filled with damned near everything and only about 20 rifles and pistols, all low grade, non-collector stuff. Nothing sells for more than $200. Then when the Unique comes up someone else there bid me up to about the price of a low grade Unique Model 17 which I'm betting is what he thought it was. So I didn't totally steal it but got it for roughly half of my pre-auction high estimate. So I'm thrilled and will probably put the long search for a Model 17 to bed. Got something much better!
-You can just make out the E/WaA251 inspection mark on the right tang, under the "4" in the SN. Has a 3 line address on the left side of the slide.